Feel the Beat

April Dibrina is a dancer chasing a job on Broadway. Her rudeness at an audition is filmed and no door in New York opens for her again. She goes back to her small Wisconsin hometown, moves in with her father and takes a temporary job preparing a children's dance team for a competition. The team is bad and April does not care; then she starts to. Elissa Down directed from a script by Michael Armbruster and Shawn Ku. Sofia Carson plays April, with Wolfgang Novogratz, Donna Lynne Champlin and Enrico Colantoni in the cast. The notable member of that cast is Shaylee Mansfield, a deaf actor playing a deaf character named Zuzu. The film carries disability and inclusion inside the story itself rather than as a side subject. It was shot in Toronto and went out on Netflix on 19 June 2020. The soundtrack includes Demi Lovato and Alessia Cara. It runs 107 minutes. The reviews were lukewarm: Rotten Tomatoes 53 percent with an average of 5.3. Who it is for: viewers who like dance films to watch with the family and warm, predictable stories. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a surprise. The film takes every turn the genre has, in order, exactly as expected.